How do we create a reconciled heart? This is at the heart of the readings for the three days at the end of this week which celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Solemnity of Peter and Paul and the 13th Sunday in Ordinary times. The readings focus on one reality how do we as Christians seek to love Jesus as He loves us. Jesus dialogue with Peter calls him to discover a love which goes beyond mutuality founded in friendship towards a total giving of self. Often we share the struggle of Peter we want to love God with all our heart, mind and strength but somehow we fall short. We are drawn towards the love of Jesus but we find ourselves caught short when we try to act out of that love for others.
Yet this is at the heart of our life of prayer where we are called to hold the living heart of Jesus as Thomas did. This calls us to not hold it the heart too tightly so that it stops beating nor is it about holding it too lightly lest we don't allow our hearts to beat in time with His. The reality of prayer is that we find that our hearts adopt a synchronous rhythm which allows our life to be at one with His. Yet we know how easy it is in community life to ask Jesus to follow the beat of our drum rather than resonating with His song line. When we bring this beat into community living it can sound more like a cacophony of noise rather than a melody of life. When each person seeks to drown out the other we find that people discover more about us than they discover about Christ.
The heart of the prayer of the Church, therefore, is how we allow Christ to set aside the natural division of being preoccupied with what interests ourselves towards a vision which unites us into deeper communion. This is the constant challenge of community life we need to allow prayer to be both an effective and an affective encounter with the person of Christ. It also calls us to notice the noise which can be more internal than external where we encounter more of our own spirit rather than the Holy Spirit. This I believe is the heart of prayer for us to notice and become aware of how important heart surgery needs to happen in our spiritual life if we are to be authentically present to others. In this, we echo Pauls words to the Galatians where we do not seek the critical voice which tears each other apart but rather the voice which enables us to love our neighbour as yourself. This changes all our relationships and the way we are called to live with each other.
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